By Angela Meyer
STEPHEN is having one of those days that seems to stretch out like eternity. He has decided he must break up with his girlfriend Fiona that evening, at the end of her daughter's birthday party. The day unfolds - hot and exhausting - and he faces many of the elements of any urban day: shopping centre, traffic, public transport, a farcical ''team-building'' event at work and standing around at a party with people he dislikes.
And there are animals. Stephen works in a cafe at Taronga Zoo, surrounded by them. His neighbours aren't kind to homeless people but they spoil their German shepherd, Balzac. Stephen wanders through a shop full of anthropomorphic dog products and in the mall he is confronted by an animal-rights activist who encourages him to hand over money.
Author Charlotte Wood.
But Stephen wonders about animals, is sceptical about the human connection to them. He observes that visitors to the zoo always want to believe the animals are noticing them. ''Surely the most appealing thing about animals,'' he thinks, ''was that - far from offering unconditional love - they wanted nothing from you.''
Stephen is a complex and challenging character (one of the siblings in Wood's previous, brilliant novel, The Children).
Animal People by Charlotte Wood.
At times the reader may relate to Stephen when he feels upset, humiliated, confused, angry. But it is also suggested Stephen views life through a slightly blurred lens. One hint that Stephen is not seeing clearly is that whenever he thinks of his girlfriend Fiona, and her girls, it's with deep love and affection. From the beginning, then, it seems that breaking up with her may not be the best thing to do.
Besides this main narrative drive - whether or not he will break up with Fiona - there are the ordinary moments in Stephen's day, such as talking to his mother on the telephone about the new TV she wants to buy. These moments are compelling because they are recognisable. But the novel's observations also compel because of a subtle tragicomedy. There are so many moments that feel simultaneously familiar and strange, humorous and sad: a security guard on a Segway, old people seeking seats on the bus, a paramedic dressed as a fairy. There's even a Kafkaesque sense of persecution: Stephen as one against the world.
Take the pair of black-and-white pants Stephen wears. All day people mistake them for being ''chef's pants'', though he insists they are not. Embarrassment is an emotion that separates us from the animals, Stephen suggests at one point.
The novel encourages us to confront certain prejudices and fears by presenting them, emotively, through Stephen. Particularly the way we easily judge others and fit them into categories. Some characters, such as Belinda, the post-New Ager obsessed with the idea of toxicity, seem little more than caricatures.
But then it's Stephen, really, who is viewing her (and others) in this way and it is quite deliberate that we see her from his point of view. Stephen has thoughts about the lady selling The Big Issue, the crazy person on the bus, two girls talking about Facebook. The reader will recognise these ideas and perceptions about the world, about the city we live in, the people we see and the people close to us. Animal People represents the existence (and even the necessity, for coping) of this private world of thoughts and encourages us to shake it up once in a while.
To write more about the animals and their place in the story would be to take away some of the pleasure of reading it. One image that has remained is the way Stephen compares Fiona to a ruby-throated hummingbird: ''If you waited, if you carefully watched, she might show you a glimpse of this gorgeousness, this vividness.''
This is a compelling and ultimately moving novel that cements Wood's place as one of the most intelligent and compassionate novelists in Australia.
■Angela Meyer writes the LiteraryMinded blog.